Nancy's flushed face was glued to the window-pane until Gilbert turned the corner. He looked back, took off his cap, threw a kiss to them, and was out of sight!
"Oh! how I wish _I_ could have gone!" cried Nancy. "I hope he won't forget what he went for! I hope he won't take 'No' for an answer. Oh! why wasn't I a boy!"
Mrs. Carey laughed as she turned from the window.
"It will be a great adventure for the man of the house, Nancy, so never mind. What would the Pathfinder have done if she had gone, instead of her brother?"
"I? Oh! Millions of things!" said Nancy, pacing the sitting-room1 floor, her head bent2 a little, her hands behind her back. "I should be going to the new railway station in Boston now, and presently I should be at the little grated window asking for a return ticket to Greentown station. 'Four ten,' the man would say, and I would fling my whole eight dollars in front of the wicket to show him what manner of person I was.
"Then I would pick up the naught-from-naught-is-naught, one-from-ten-is-nine, five-from-eight-is-three,--three dollars and ninety cents or thereabouts and turn away.
"'Parlor3 car seat, Miss?' the young man would say,--a warm, worried young man in a seersucker coat, and I would answer, 'No thank you; I always go in the common car to study human nature.' That's what the Admiral says, but of course the ticket man couldn't know that the Admiral is an intimate friend of mine, and would think I said it myself.
"Then I would go down the platform and take the common car for Greentown. Soon we would be off and I would ask the conductor if Greentown was the station where one could change and drive to Beulah, darling little Beulah, shiny-rivered Beulah; not breathing a word about the yellow house for fear he would jump off the train and rent it first. Then he would say he never heard of Beulah. I would look pityingly at him, but make no reply because it would be no use, and anyway I know Greentown _is_ the changing place, because I've asked three men before; but Cousin Ann always likes to make conductors acknowledge they don't know as much as she does.
"Then I present a few peanuts or peppermints4 to a small boy, and hold an infant for a tired mother, because this is what good children do in the Sunday-school books, but I do not mingle5 much with the passengers because my brow is furrowed6 with thought and I am travelling on important business."
You can well imagine that by this time Mother Carey has taken out her darning, and Kathleen her oversewing, to which she pays little attention because she so adores Nancy's tales. Peter has sat like a small statue ever since his quick ear caught the sound of a story. His eyes follow Nancy as she walks up and down improvising7, and the only interruption she ever receives from her audience is Kathleen's or Mother Carey's occasional laugh at some especially ridiculous sentence.
"The hours fly by like minutes," continues Nancy, stopping by the side window and twirling the curtain tassel8 absently. "I scan the surrounding country to see if anything compares with Beulah, and nothing does. No such river, no such trees, no such well, no such old oaken bucket, and above all no such Yellow House. All the other houses I see are but as huts compared with the Yellow House of Beulah. Soon the car door opens; a brakeman looks in and calls in a rich baritone voice, 'Greentown! Greentown! Do-not-leave-any-passles in the car!' And if you know beforehand what he is going to say you can understand him quite nicely, so I take up my bag and go down the aisle9 with dignity. 'Step lively, Miss!' cries the brakeman, but I do not heed10 him; it is not likely that a person renting country houses will move save with majesty11. Alighting, I inquire if there is any conveyance12 for Beulah, and there is, a wagon13 and a white horse. I ask the driver boldly to drive me to the Colonel's office. He does not ask which Colonel, or what Colonel, he simply says, 'Colonel Foster, I s'pose,' and I say, 'Certainly.' We arrive at the office and when I introduce myself as Captain Carey's daughter I receive a glad welcome. The Colonel rings a bell and an aged14 beldame approaches, making a deep curtsy and offering me a beaker of milk, a crusty loaf, a few venison pasties, and a cold goose stuffed with humming birds. When I have reduced these to nothingness I ask if the yellow house on the outskirts15 of the village is still vacant, and the Colonel replies that it is, at which unexpected but hoped-for answer I fall into a deep swoon. When I awake the aged Colonel is bending over me, his long white goat's beard tickling16 my chin."
(Mother Carey stops her darning now and Kathleen makes no pretence17 of sewing; the story is fast approaching its climax,--everybody feels that, including Peter, who hopes that he will be in it, in some guise18 or other, before it ends.)
"'Art thou married, lady?' the aged one asks courteously19, 'and if not, wilt20 thou be mine?'"
"I tremble, because he does not seem to notice that he is eighty or ninety and I but fifteen, yet I fear if I reject him too scornfully and speedily the Yellow House will never be mine. 'Grant me a little time in which to fit myself for this great honor,' I say modestly, and a mighty21 good idea, too, that I got out of a book the other day; when suddenly, as I gaze upward, my suitor's white hair turns to brown, his beard drops off, his wrinkles disappear, and he stands before me a young Knight22, in full armor. 'Wilt go to the yellow castle with me, sweet lady?' he asks. '_Wilt I_!' I cry in ecstasy23, and we leap on the back of a charger hitched24 to the Colonel's horseblock. We dash down the avenue of elms and maples25 that line the village street, and we are at our journey's end before the Knight has had time to explain to me that he was changed into the guise of an old man by an evil sorcerer some years before, and could never return to his own person until some one appeared who wished to live in the yellow house, which is Beulah Castle.
"We approach the well-known spot and the little picket26 gate, and the Knight lifts me from the charger's back. 'Here are house and lands, and all are yours, sweet lady, if you have a younger brother. There is treasure hidden in the ground behind the castle, and no one ever finds such things save younger brothers.'
"'I have a younger brother,' I cry, '_and his name is Peter_!'"
At this point in Nancy's chronicle Peter is nearly beside himself with excitement. He has been sitting on his hassock, his hands outspread upon his fat knees, his lips parted, his eyes shining. Somewhere, sometime, in Nancy's stories there is always a Peter. He lives for that moment!
Nancy, stifling27 her laughter, goes on rapidly:
"And so the Knight summons Younger Brother Peter to come, and he flies in a great air ship from Charlestown to Beulah. And when he arrives the Knight asks him to dig for the buried treasure."
(Peter here turns up his sleeves to his dimpled elbows and seizes an imaginary implement28.)
"Peter goes to the back of the castle, and there is a beautiful garden filled with corn and beans and peas and lettuce29 and potatoes and beets30 and onions and turnips31 and carrots and parsnips and tomatoes and cabbages. He takes his magic spade and it leads him to the cabbages. He digs and digs, and in a moment the spade strikes metal!
"'He has found the gold!' cries the Knight, and Peter speedily lifts from the ground pots and pots of ducats and florins, and gulden and doubloons."
(Peter nods his head at the mention of each precious coin and then claps his hands, and hugs himself with joy, and rocks himself to and fro on the hassock, in his ecstasy at being the little god in the machine.)
"Then down the village street there is the sound of hurrying horses' feet, and in a twinkling a gayly painted chariot comes into view, and in it are sitting the Queen Mother and the Crown Prince and Princess of the House of Carey. They alight; Peter meets them at the gate, a pot of gold in each hand. They enter the castle and put their umbrellas in one corner of the front hall and their rubbers in the other one, behind the door. Lady Nancibel trips up the steps after them and, turning, says graciously to her Knight, 'Would you just as soon marry somebody else? I am very much attached to my family, and they will need me dreadfully while they are getting settled.'
"'I did not recall the fact that I had asked you to be mine,' courteously answers the youth.
"'You did,' she responds, very much embarrassed, as she supposed of course he would remember his offer made when he was an old man with a goat's beard; 'but gladly will I forget all, if you will relinquish32 my hand.'
"'As you please!' answers the Knight generously. 'I can deny you nothing when I remember you have brought me back my youth. Prithee, is the other lady bespoke33, she of the golden hair?'
"'Many have asked, but I have chosen none,' answers the Crown Princess Kitty modestly, as is her wont34.
"'Then you will do nicely,' says the Knight, 'since all I wish is to be son-in-law to the Queen Mother!'
"'Right you are, my hearty35!' cries Prince Gilbert de Carey, 'and as we much do need a hand at the silver-polishing I will gladly give my sister in marriage!'
"So they all went into Beulah Castle and locked the door behind them, and there they lived in great happiness and comfort all the days of their lives, and there they died when it came their time, and they were all buried by the shores of the shining river of Beulah!"
"Oh! it is perfectly36 splendid!" cried Kathleen. "About the best one you ever told! But do change the end a bit, Nancy dear! It's dreadful for him to marry Kitty when he chose Nancibel first. I'd like him awfully37, but I don't want to take him that way!"
"Well, how would this do?" and Nancy pondered a moment before going on: "'Right you are, my hearty!' cries Prince Gilbert de Carey, 'and as we do need a hand at the silver-polishing I will gladly give my sister in marriage.'
"'Hold!' cries the Queen Mother. 'All is not as it should be in this coil! How can you tell,' she says, turning to the knightly38 stranger, 'that memory will not awake one day, and you recall the adoration39 you felt when you first beheld40 the Lady Nancibel in a deep swoon?'
"The Young Knight's eyes took on a far-away look and he put his hand to his forehead.
"'It comes back to me now!' he sighed. 'I did love the Lady Nancibel passionately41, and I cannot think how it slipped my mind!'
"'I release you willingly!' exclaimed the Crown Princess Kitty haughtily42, 'for a million suitors await my nod, and thou wert never really mine!'
"'But the other lady rejects me also!' responds the luckless youth, the tears flowing from his eagle eyes onto his crimson43 mantle44.
"'Wilt delay the nuptials45 until I am eighteen and the castle is set in order?' asks the Lady Nancibel relentingly.
"'Since it must be, I do pledge thee my vow46 to wait,' says the Knight. 'And I do beg the fair one with the golden locks to consider the claims of my brother, not my equal perhaps, but still a gallant47 youth.'
"'I will enter him on my waiting list as number Three Hundred and Seventeen,' responds the Crown Princess Kitty, than whom no violet could be more shy. ''Tis all he can expect and more than I should promise.'
"So they all lived in the yellow castle in great happiness forever after, and were buried by the shores of the shining river of Beulah!--Does that suit you better?"
"Simply lovely!" cried Kitty, "and the bit about my modesty48 is too funny for words!--Oh, if some of it would only happen! But I am afraid Gilbert will not stir up any fairy stories and set them going."
"Some of it will happen!" exclaimed Peter. "I shall dig every single day till I find the gold-pots."
"You are a pot of gold yourself, filled full and running over!"
"Now, Nancy, run and write down your fairy tale while you remember it!" said Mother Carey.
"It is as good an exercise as any other, and you still tell a story far better than you write it!"
Nancy did this sort of improvising every now and then, and had done it from earliest childhood; and sometimes, of late, Mother Carey looked at her eldest49 chicken and wondered if after all she had hatched in her a bird of brighter plumage or rarer song than the rest, or a young eagle whose strong wings would bear her to a higher flight!
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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peppermints
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| n.薄荷( peppermint的名词复数 )；薄荷糖 | |
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mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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improvising
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| 即兴创作（improvise的现在分词形式） | |
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tassel
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| n.流苏，穗；v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须 | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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tickling
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| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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implement
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| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
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lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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beets
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| 甜菜( beet的名词复数 )； 甜菜根； （因愤怒、难堪或觉得热而）脸红 | |
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turnips
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| 芜青( turnip的名词复数 )； 芜菁块根； 芜菁甘蓝块根； 怀表 | |
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relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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bespoke
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| adj.（产品）订做的；专做订货的v.预定( bespeak的过去式 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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knightly
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| adj. 骑士般的 adv. 骑士般地 | |
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adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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nuptials
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| n.婚礼；婚礼( nuptial的名词复数 ) | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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48
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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